The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At least nine employees of the US State Department working in or with Uganda had their iPhones hacked with spyware made by NSO Group, according to a report from Reuters. While it’s unclear who carried out the attacks, NSO Group says it only sells its software to government organizations that have gotten approval from the Israeli government.NSO has claimed that its spyware isn’t able to target US phone numbers (that is, numbers with a country code of +1). This case doesn’t seem to disprove that claim — Reuters reports that, while the people targeted were employees of the State Department, they were using foreign telephone numbers. Still, the devices were used for official State Department business, suggesting NSO may now be implicated... Continue reading…

Warehouses in Redlands, California, U.S., on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. | Roger Kisby/Bloomberg via Getty Images Warehouses are increasingly dominating the commercial building landscape in the US, which could have ramifications for efforts to tackle climate change. According to data recently released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), warehouses and storage units have become the most common commercial buildings in the country — outpacing offices. That has the potential to cause greenhouse gas emissions to climb or tumble, and it largely hinges on whether warehouses can ditch natural gas.Compared to office buildings, warehouses that store everything from food to clothes tend to rely more heavily on gas heating systems because upfront costs of those systems are cheap, and they’re easy to install, an expert tells The Verge. Even... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook parent company Meta is introducing a built-in bill splitting feature in Facebook Messenger that it will test with users in the US beginning next week. The feature could be useful for situations like divvying up a restaurant bill with your friends or splitting a bill with roommates.With the feature, you can ask for money from people right in a group chat and see who has paid their portion of the request. You can see how it all works in a series of screenshots below from Meta. The feature arrives shortly after David Marcus, Meta’s cryptocurrency chief and former Messenger lead, announced he would be leaving the company. Image: Meta Facebook Messenger’s upcoming bill splitting feature. Meta has also... Continue reading…

Northrop Grumman space station | Image: Northrop Grumman NASA announced the selection of three US companies that will receive government funding to further develop private space stations on Thursday. From a set of 11 proposals, NASA selected Blue Origin, Nanoracks LLC, and Northrop Grumman to receive over $400 million in federal funds through three separate Space Act Agreements.NASA began seeking proposals in July for its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development (CLD) program, which aims to support the development of commercial space stations. It is a part of a bigger plan to eventually replace the International Space Station (ISS) with commercial space stations. Through this model, NASA would be a customer of the commercial space industry, allowing it to save on costs and focus on basic... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Buried deep within Facebook’s November report on Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior is a tale of international intrigue that seems more like a Netflix drama than an attempted disinformation campaign (although the way Netflix mines social media for ideas these days, maybe stay tuned). On July 24th, a Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards claimed on Facebook and Twitter that the US was pressuring World Health Organization (WHO) scientists studying the origins of COVID-19.His claims spread quickly on social media, as such claims are wont to do, and within a week’s time, the Global Times and People’s Daily, two state-run Chinese media outlets, were denouncing Wilson Edwards’ claims as “intimidation” by the US. Wilson Edwards created his... Continue reading…

24 face with tears of joy emoji, each more terrifying than the last. Until recently, I was a firm believer in the traditional smiley emoji. “It’s cute!” I used to think, as I happily used it to indicate my gentle amusement at everything from puns to fun weekend plans. But apparently, this was a mistake, and when I thought I was expressing sincere happiness, I was actually sending an emoji that’s “colossally insulting in every conceivable way,” according to The Guardian.It seems the rest of the world agrees, and the “slightly smiling face,” to use its full name, doesn’t feature in the top 10 of the most used emoji in 2021. In fact, according to data from the Unicode Consortium, the slightly smiling face isn’t even in the top 20. It’s down at number 28, sandwiched between “clapping hands” and “flushed... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is planning to create an Xbox Game Pass-like subscription service, according to Bloomberg. The company already offers two subscription services, PlayStation Plus (which is required for the majority of online multiplayer games) and PlayStation Now (which offers a catalog of games to download or stream), and they will reportedly be merged in this new offering. Sony will likely keep the PlayStation Plus brand, reporter Jason Schreier said on Twitter, but “phase out” PlayStation Now.This new service, which is codenamed Spartacus, would have three tiers. One would offer current PlayStation Plus perks, another would include a catalog of PS4 and “eventually” PS5 games, and a third would have “extended demos, game streaming and a library... Continue reading…

Arcane isn’t just one of the best new animated shows on Netflix — it’s also a great introduction to the vast and often inscrutable world of League of Legends. If you’ve finished the show and have found yourself intrigued by the fantasy realm of Runeterra, you might be wondering where to go next. There are a few options, but thankfully developer Riot has just released a new role-playing game that’s a perfect next step for budding fans.Ruined King: A League of Legends Story is available now on the Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and it’s a bite-sized RPG that lets you explore a different part of League mythology. It stars a handful of iconic characters — including the hulking Braum and the kraken-wielding priestess Illaoi — and lets you... Continue reading…

A new report says Amazon charges small businesses fees that eat into profits | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The massive reach of Amazon’s e-commerce platform is appealing for any small business that wants to sell its products online. But a new report suggests that the cost of doing business can become a Faustian bargain for a third-party seller, as the fees that Amazon charges them can quickly eat into profits.Amazon Toll Road, a report from the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), found that Amazon charged third-party sellers a total of $121 billion in fees this year alone. According to the report, written by ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell, those fees — for things like advertising, referrals, and shipping — usually mean that small businesses lose money to Amazon; Mitchell said that in 2014, sellers paid Amazon $19 of every... Continue reading…

Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack is compatible with all iPhone 12 and 13 models. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Today marks one week since Black Friday (good riddance). The shopping weekend and Thanksgiving holiday may already feel as though they happened ages ago, but some deals have stuck around while new ones continue to crop up. We can’t stop time from flying by, but we can keep serving you the best tech deals possible.Kicking things off, the Apple MagSafe Battery Pack has reached a new all-time low price. The portable battery was released in the summer, and it didn’t take long to see some decent discounts. Now, just in time for holiday gifting, you can pick up the MagSafe Battery Pack for $75 at Amazon or Best Buy — a whole $25 off. This battery pack may not be able to fill an iPhone 12 or 13 from empty, but it’s one of the handiest ways to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has removed a total of 2,160 accounts linked to Chinese regional and state propaganda campaigns, the social network has announced as part of its latest data release on misinformation campaigns. The accounts were attempting to push back against allegations of human rights abuses by the Chinese government against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.Alongside it, Twitter has also detailed a campaign it discovered in Tanzania, which used copyright complaints to harass members and supporters of the FichuaTanzania human rights group.Twitter says 2,048 of the accounts “amplified Chinese Communist Party narratives related to the treatment of the Uyghur population,” while a further 112 were connected to a private company backed by the... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Falcodrin tells us the average gamer has barely any chance Continue reading…

Jimmy Wales / Christie’s Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is selling a non-fungible token (or NFT) based on his first edit of the free encyclopedia. Auction house Christie’s will hold a sale of the token from December 3rd to 15th, auctioning it alongside the Strawberry iMac Wales was using around Wikipedia’s launch. The funds will go toward charitable causes and WT.Social, a donation-backed social network that Wales launched in 2019.Wales’ NFT is effectively the keys to a very early version of Wikipedia, which debuted in January of 2001. “What you see displayed is what Wikipedia looked like at the moment that I set up the software,” he tells The Verge. The single page will be launched publicly on the web, and much like Wikipedia itself, anyone will be able to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is backtracking on changes it made to Windows 11 that made it more difficult to switch default browsers. A new test build of Windows 11 now allows users of Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers to set a default browser with a single button, which is a far simpler process.Rafael Rivera, developer of the excellent EarTrumpet Windows app, discovered the new Windows 11 changes earlier this week. Instead of having to change individual file extensions or protocol handlers for HTTP, HTTPS, .HTML, and .HTM, Windows 11 now offers a simple button that lets people switch default browsers in a similar way to Windows 10.Microsoft has confirmed the changes are intentional and are currently being tested. “In the Windows 11 Insider Preview... Continue reading…

Jamal Hinton and Wanda Dench. | Image: Jamal Hinton Five years after Jamal Hinton secured himself a seat at Wanda Dench’s thanksgiving dinner thanks to a wrong number, their story is being turned into a Netflix feature film, the streaming giant has announced. The Thanksgiving Text will be written by Abdul Williams (The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story), but Variety notes that a cast or director are yet to be announced.The Thanksgiving Text is the latest example of a film drawing inspiration from viral online content. Perhaps most notably, Zola turned viral Twitter thread #TheStory into a surprisingly good feature-length movie. This 2015 article from Gizmodo has plenty of other examples, including Bad Ass, a film loosely based on the viral video “AC Transit Bus Fight,” and the... Continue reading…

James Bareham / The Verge A new update to Pokémon Go for iOS lets you run the game at higher frame rates. With version 1.191.0, the “advanced settings” section of the app now includes an option that reads “Unlock your device’s native refresh rate for higher FPS.”I tried it out on my iPhone 13 Pro and it makes a huge difference. Pokémon Go isn’t the most visually complicated game, of course, but there’s a lot of scrolling and camera movement, and the smoother touch response feels a lot better when you’re lining up a pokéball throw with your finger.Here’s how the feature appears in the game’s menu: Pokémon Go was previously locked to 30fps on iOS devices. Many Android phones are already capable of running the game at a higher frame rate, though in... Continue reading…

Nintendo launched its “Expansion Pack” for the Switch Online service back in October, which brought Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64 games to the library of playable retro titles. The first new addition has now been announced, and it’s just one game: Paper Mario. It’ll be available on December 10th.Paper Mario was released for the N64 in 2000 and was the first entry in what became a popular spin-off series featuring Mario characters and RPG-style turn-based combat. The most recent game, Paper Mario: The Origami King, came out on the Switch last year.The launch of Nintendo’s Expansion Pack was somewhat contentious. The $49.99 annual fee does also include a big Animal Crossing expansion, but it’s still a big hike over the regular $29.99... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is reconsidering its return-to-office plans again, saying that its US employees won’t have to adopt a hybrid work model come January 10th, as was previously indicated. A Google spokesperson told The Verge that the company’s current plan is to hold off on coming up with new plans until next year, with decisions regarding timelines still being left up to local offices.The company has changed its return to work plans several times as the pandemic evolved. In August, when the delta variant was a growing concern, we learned that the company intended to keep in-office work voluntary until at least January 10th, 2022. That plan itself was a change from a previous one that was revealed in December 2020, which would have had employees r... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday night, someone drained funds from multiple cryptocurrency wallets connected to the decentralized finance platform BadgerDAO. According to the blockchain security and data analytics Peckshield, which is working with Badger to investigate the heist, the various tokens stolen in the attack are worth about $120 million.

Photo by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images Were you one of the 53,000 attendees of the Anime NYC 2021 convention in New York City, or know someone who did? New York City authorities and Anime NYC organizers are urging every single attendee, exhibitor, artist, and staff member to get tested for COVID-19 — because one of the United States’ first confirmed cases of the new omicron variant was a man who attended the convention and likely caught it there (via Kotaku).

Signal users can make donations to the company within the app | Signal Secure messaging app Signal has launched a new feature that allows users to make donations within the app, the company announced. As a nonprofit, Signal doesn’t receive financial support from any advertisers or shareholders, a new blog post notes, and relies on users for donations.Users can choose to make monthly donations, or one-off contributions within the app using Apple Pay or Google Pay, and their payment information won’t be associated with a user’s Signal account, according to the blog post, as the company will use the same anonymous credential scheme it uses for private Signal groups:

The Steam Deck in its box. | Image: Valve Valve has shared a preview of the Steam Deck’s final package design ahead of the handheld gaming PC’s recently delayed launch date.Each Steam Deck comes with the console and a carrying case, and Valve revealed in these photos that each device also comes with its own USB-C power supply, meaning you won’t have to source your own like you have to with many recent smartphones. The box also has a handful of fun Easter eggs for Valve superfans — I’ve spotted a few Portal references myself. Image: Valve The Steam Deck’s box, closed. Valve says it’s testing the packaging design, so there could be some changes from what you see in the pictures when the Steam Deck ships next year. The company also says it has... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Zoom has reached a settlement (PDF) in a class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy and security issues, and if you used the videoconferencing app before July, then you could be eligible to receive money as a result. The company has agreed to pay $85 million while continuing to deny the allegations and any liability.There are two groups eligible to file a claim. If you paid for a Zoom Meetings App subscription between March 30th, 2016, and July 30th, 2021, you can file a claim for $25 or 15 percent of what you paid for that subscription (excluding optional add-ons). You’re entitled to whichever is greater.The plaintiffs allege Zoom failed to prevent ZoombombingThe second bucket is much broader. If you aren’t eligible for the first... Continue reading…

Endwalker is coming, and I’m not ready for it. I came to Final Fantasy XIV only this year, ravenously tearing through A Realm Reborn and Heavensward before abandoning the game somewhere in the middle of Stormblood, which is generally considered to be inferior to the other FFXIV expansions.Then news of a new expansion hit, rekindling my desire to restart my journey, hopefully finishing in time for Endwalker’s launch. I harbored no illusions about my ability to power through one-and-a-half expansions’ worth of content before December 8th, but I could try, and trying meant getting through Stormblood first. So I proposed an experiment: Final Fantasy XIV will go down for maintenance at 4AM EST in preparation for a new patch and to open up E... Continue reading…

The front-facing camera on a Samsung smartphone. Next year’s Qualcomm processor will allow these cameras to always scan for your face, even when you’re not using the phone. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge “Your phone’s front camera is always securely looking for your face, even if you don’t touch it or raise to wake it.” That’s how Qualcomm Technologies vice president of product management Judd Heape introduced the company’s new always-on camera capabilities in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor set to arrive in top-shelf Android phones early next year.Depending on who you are, that statement can either be exciting or terrifying. For Qualcomm, it thinks this new feature will enable new use cases, like being able to wake and unlock your phone without having to pick it up or have it instantly lock when it no longer sees your face.But for those of us with any sense of how modern technology is used to violate our privacy, a camera on our... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hackers were able to access files containing personal information for hundreds of thousands of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles patients with a ransomware attack that occurred in October, according to a report by The Washington Post. A letter sent to affected patients by Planned Parenthood explained that the files contained patients’ names and “one or more of the following: address, insurance information, date of birth, and clinical information, such as diagnosis, procedure, and/or prescription information.”Planned Parenthood says the ransomware was installed on its network some time between October 9th and October 17th. On the 17th, the organization noticed the intrusion, took its systems offline, and contacted law enforcement and... Continue reading…

I’m about to introduce a topic that most of us would rather avoid: our digital legacy. In other words, what happens to all our digital stuff after we die? (And if your answer is “That’s not gonna happen,” you haven’t been paying a lot of attention lately, have you?)If you’re reading this, odds are that you’ve got a lot of digital stuff, both on your own devices and floating around in the cloud: backups, photos, tweets, Facebook messages, texts, you name it. If you’re no longer around to pay attention, these can hang around for a very long time — and some of it may be important to your survivors. (For example, who else has the passwords to your bank accounts and credit cards?)So let’s take a deep breath and discuss how to make things... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm just ran into another massive hurdle: the Federal Trade Commission, which announced today that it’s suing to block the merger from going through due to concerns that the combined companies would “stifle competing next-generation technologies.” The suit comes after an FTC investigation into the deal following complaints from Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm shortly after the merger was announced.“The FTC is suing to block the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies,” said FTC Bureau of Competition director Holly Vedova in a statement. “Tomorrow’s technologies depend on preserving today’s... Continue reading…

EA is making a big change to the management of the Battlefield franchise by putting Vince Zampella, the CEO of Titanfall and Apex Legends-maker Respawn Entertainment, in charge of the series, according to a GameSpot article published Thursday.Alongside Zampella’s new oversight of the franchise, EA plans to build an interconnected Battlefield universe, he told GameSpot. To help support that, EA is creating a new Seattle-based team focused on “injecting more storytelling into the Battlefield universe” headed up by Halo veteran Marcus Lehto, while Ripple Effect, which made Battlefield 2042’s customizable Portal mode, is working on a “new Battlefield experience in the Battlefield 2042 universe.”The changes arrive shortly after... Continue reading…

Wear a helmet but please remove the neckbuds | Image: DeWALT If you didn’t know that tool manufacturer DeWalt made wireless headphones, don’t worry — we hadn’t either until they started catching on fire. The DeWalt-branded Jobsite Pro Wireless Earphones are being recalled by manufacturer E-filliate for safety concerns of overheating. The company said the recall affects about 301,000 units, which were were sold in stores including Home Depot and Lowes between December 2019 and July 2021.The US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall on December 1st and said there had been 61 reports of the headphones overheating, including five fire incidents and four minor burn injuries.E-filliate says customers can contact the company for a free replacement of its $60 headsets but did not... Continue reading…

This is not the new watch; we have not seen the new watch yet. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is finally making its own in-house smartwatch that’s set to launch in 2022, according to a person familiar with the matter and a new report from Insider.While Google has made its own smartphones for years under the Pixel line (which has since extended to other accessories, like wireless headphones), the company has never designed its own smartwatch, despite the fact that Google has had a companion wearable platform for Android since 2014.The watch is being worked on by Google’s Pixel hardware group separately from Fitbit, which Google bought for $2.1 billion earlier this year. According to Insider’s report, the new upcoming Google watch — it’s not clear whether Google will actually be calling it a “Pixel Watch” yet — will... Continue reading…

My friend said this picture makes me look like Hide the Pain Harold. Following the news that Square is changing its name to Block, people started noticing (read: making fun of) the company’s new leadership and board of directors pages. While Block is still the same financial company that operates Cash App and Tidal and still has Jack Dorsey as its CEO, the leadership pages now feature each person’s portrait projected onto cubes. Now, Twitter user @tarngerine has pushed this developing meme even further by creating a tool that lets you create your own blockhead image.Using Blockify Yourself is pretty simple — you select an uncomfortably close-up image of your face (or any image, I suppose, but if you’re looking for the best results...), and the site will turn it into a cube. You can also mess around with... Continue reading…

Polestar offered a glimpse of its upcoming electric SUV, the Polestar 3, which will be the Volvo performance sub-brand’s first car manufactured in the United States.The SUV, which is expected to roll out in 2022, will slot into the premium category, putting it in competition with EVs like the Tesla Model X, Audi E-tron, Mercedes-Benz EQC, Rivian R1S, and Fisker Ocean. Notably, the Polestar will be assembled at Volvo’s factory in Charleston, South Carolina, giving it the distinction of being the company’s first EV made on US soil.“We will build in America for Americans”“We will build in America for Americans,” says Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO.In addition to be being a higher-riding vehicle than the Polestar 2 fastback sedan, the... Continue reading…

Luna Display’s latest update adds a helpful new feature: allowing you to hook up a Windows PC to a Mac laptop or desktop (including Apple’s flash M1 iMacs) to use as a secondary display. The new update also enables 4K and 5K resolution options (assuming you’ve got a screen that supports it).While Luna Display has offered Mac-to-Mac connectivity for a while, until now, users were only able to connect PCs to iPads using the company’s dongle and software setup. The new PC-to-Mac connection works both wirelessly and through an ethernet connection, just like the Mac-to-Mac option does.Additionally, Luna Display’s update adds support for 5K and 4K monitors at full resolutions, although there are still some limitations there: PCs can only run... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Jesse Zhang If you ask Jimmy Bailey what killed his best friend Mark Calivas, his answer is simple: “It was Apple.” How else could he explain how the Apple Store wellness champion — known for evangelizing therapy and mental health — would slide into a depression so profound he’d be forced to take medical leave and ultimately die by suicide? “It was nothing in his outside life that did this,” Bailey says. “It was work.”Calivas started at the Apple Southpoint store in Durham, North Carolina in March 2013. His colleagues laughed when he’d arrived in the morning with multiple changes of clothes (he went on a six-mile run up the American Tobacco Trail on his lunch break) and healthy snacks (he was on the keto diet and carried around two 64oz water... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge General Motors won’t build any new Chevy Bolt EVs until at least the end of January 2022. The automaker will instead stay focused on making replacement batteries for the 140,000-plus Bolts that were recalled earlier this year after a series of fires.The Bolt production line at GM’s Orion assembly plant in Michigan will remain shut down “through the week of Jan. 24, 2022,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “We will continue to inform employees at the appropriate time of any additional production schedule adjustments, as we continue to focus on battery module replacements.”GM had already said that it wasn’t going to make any more Bolts for the rest of this year, though Thursday’s announcement put a more fine date on things. But... Continue reading…

Microsoft is starting to roll out its new Office UI to all users this week. The visual update was originally announced earlier this year and went into testing over the summer. Now it’s starting to roll out to all Office 365 and Office 2021 users.This new Office UI is designed to match the visual changes in Windows 11, and it includes a more rounded look to the Office ribbon bar, with some subtle tweaks to the buttons throughout Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It’s a relatively simple refresh, and Office will now match the dark or light theme that you set inside Windows. Image: Microsoft The new Office visual update. The new look can be toggled on or off using the Coming Soon megaphone icon in the top... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As part of efforts to expand the health information it provides, today Google announced a new feature in search that will allow doctors to list which languages they can speak at their offices.People who speak languages other than English often struggle to navigate the healthcare system in the United States and are at risk of bad medical outcomes because they have more trouble communicating with providers. They get better care when they have access to trained interpreters or are seen by providers who speak their native languages.In a blog post, Google also drew attention to other recently added features that address challenges patients face with the health system, including the ability to see what insurance networks are accepted by... Continue reading…

Over the past year, Microsoft has been steadily adding custom Xbox touch controls to more than 100 games that can be streamed to Android and iOS phones using its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service. While these controls may seem gimmicky to some, Microsoft is now revealing that 20 percent of players use these touch controls exclusively.“[Twenty] percent of our Xbox Cloud Gaming users use touch as their exclusive method of playing games,” explains Monty Hernandez, a senior program manager at Xbox. “As such, it’s important to us that the touch-enabled games we launch are relevant and, most importantly, play well with touch controls.”It’s a surprising stat and there are even individual games where 30 percent of players use touch controls... Continue reading…

An artistic rendering of Neutron | Image: Rocket Lab This morning, small satellite launcher Rocket Lab unveiled the details of its future, more powerful Neutron rocket — a launch vehicle optimized to carry satellites into orbit for future mega-constellations. Made out of a special carbon composite that Rocket Lab created, Neutron will also be mostly reusable, designed to land on a landing pad after launch — similar to how SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 rockets.“This is not a conventional rocket,” Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s CEO, said during the unveil, livestreamed on YouTube. “This is what a rocket should look like in 2050. But we’re building it today.” As of now, Neutron is slated for its first flight in 2024.“This is not a conventional rocket.”Rocket Lab already has one rocket called... Continue reading…

Grayson Blackmon / The Verge The company formerly known as Facebook has bet big on the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg hyped the already popular term in October, when he changed the company’s name to Meta and led viewers through its dizzying vision of the future.But “the metaverse” is a much bigger — and more confusing — idea. From its origins in science fiction, it’s become a catchall for anything that mixes people’s physical and virtual lives. That includes virtual and augmented reality headsets; 3D virtual worlds like Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft; and decentralized Web3 services including cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens or NFTs. Lots of “metaverse” proponents don’t agree on a single definition for the word or on how much people are already living in it.... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo AI wanna be the very best, like no one ever was Continue reading…

Both Govee’s newest and last-gen Immersion TV LED backlights are on sale today. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge If you’re looking to step up your TV game and make watching movies and gaming more immersive, Govee offers a range of colorful lighting kits that also make for great holiday gifts. One of its most appealing products are the Immersion TV LED backlights, which sync to whatever you’re watching on your 55-inch or 65-inch screen, making it appear as if the TV colors are bleeding out of the frame and onto your walls. Responsive LED strips like these are typically expensive, but right now Govee’s 2020 backlighting kit costs just $61 once you clip the $10 off coupon at Amazon. That’s the kit’s best price to date.Prefer not to shop at Amazon? Govee is selling this product direct for $63. There’s a newer version of these lights, which farther... Continue reading…

Alex Castro But they stand to gain a real chance at change Continue reading…

It might remind you of a vintage metal camera, but it’s all plastic Continue reading…

A selection of the devices GeForce Now streams to. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia’s GeForce Now game streaming service is getting an RTX 3080-themed upgrade in Europe. Nvidia announced the new membership tier in October, and it’s already available in the US. But, as of today, gamers in Europe can start streaming from the company’s new higher-performance servers, which offer improved resolutions, frame rates, and less latency.The RTX 3080 membership tier offers up to 1440p / 120fps gameplay through PC and Mac, or up to 4K HDR / 60fps when streamed to an Nvidia Shield TV. That’s up from 1080p at 60fps with the current Priority tier. Session lengths can also extend up to eight hours long rather than six, and Nvidia also says the tier offers lower latency. The big tradeoff is price, with the new tier costing... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update 8:50AM ET, December 2nd: Target appears to have sold out of consoles for now.Shopping for a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X these days is starting to feel like hunting for toilet paper during the early days of the pandemic. Thankfully, however, if you still haven’t been able to land one, right now Target is giving you another shot, with online ordering for in-store pickup at stores near you.Listings for the $499.99 PS5 with a disc drive went up first, followed by the $399.99 PS5 digital edition. Sales for the $499.99 Xbox Series X are live now too, but online the only option is the $34.99 All Access subscription package, as the page notes that direct purchases are in-store only. For all of these, availability will depend on your... Continue reading…

Image: Google In a new research paper, Google has detailed the tech behind its impressive Project Starline demo from this year’s I/O conference. Project Starline is essentially a 3D video chat booth that aims to replace a one-on-one 2D video conference call with an experience that feels like you’re actually sitting in front of a real human being.It sounds simple, but Google’s research paper highlights just how many challenges there are in tricking your brain into thinking there’s a real human being sitting just a few feet away from you. Obviously the image needs to be high resolution and free of distracting artifacts, but it also needs to look correct from your relative position in the booth. Audio is another challenge, as the system needs to make... Continue reading…

Tesla has quietly launched a $1,900 four-wheel ATV for kids. The Cyberquad for Kids is available to order right now from Tesla’s website, and will begin shipping in two to four weeks. The surprise announcement comes more than two year after Tesla announced a fullsize Cyberquad ATV to compliment its futuristic Cybertruck. The Cyberquad has not yet shipped.This new pint-sized Cybersquad is designed for kids 8 years old and up, and ones that have parents that can afford to buy them a $1,900 ATV. It includes a steel frame, cushioned seat, and adjustable suspension with rear disk braking. There’s even LED light bars to complete the cyberpunk aesthetics. This all-electric ATV has a top speed of 10mph, and the battery will power up to 15 miles... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is indicating to its iPhone 13 component suppliers that it may not order as many units as expected due to a drop in demand, according to a report in Bloomberg.While the company had already cut orders for the year to 80 million — down from a target of 90 million — it was reportedly planning to make up for much of the drop next year. Now, though, Apple is said to have told manufacturing partners that this may not happen and they might not see the expected boost in orders.Like almost every other technology company, Apple has been dealing with supply issues brought on by the global semiconductor shortage. CEO Tim Cook said the company’s last quarterly earnings took an estimated $6 billion hit due to the shortage as well as the... Continue reading…